I know that this is off topic, but I just wanted to ask, why hasn't GameSpot mentioned the Hyperkin Retron 5?
http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/23/4140592/hyperkin-retron-5-gaming-console-can-play-almost-any-cartridge
You can emulate, sure, but this thing is cool (if it works, which I imagine will). Sorry for being off topic, but I thought it was worth mentioning, and I hope it gets noticed here.
The month of March comes to a close; GameSpot Asia and friends talk about BioShock Infinite (no spoilers), Tomb Raider, SimCity and others.
March is almost over, which means that there wouldn't be too many titles assaulting our gaming senses. Between playing through the likes of BioShock Infinite, Tomb Raider, and SimCity, along with keeping track of GDC news like that Metal Gear game consisting of hospital scenes and flaming horses, we confess that it's a tough juggling act to decide what to focus on talking about for the show.
Joining Randolph and I in our games-talking are ESPN Game's Marc "The Fraggot" Lim and GXBlog's Michael Khoo. On with the podcast!
Download the show here. What are the games you've been playing this month? Are you stoked about Metal Gear Solid V? Talk about it on the comments box below.
OP and ED music: "PenPal" by Anamanaguchi
Intermission: "The Kirb Reich" by Brandon Strader
Born and raised from a jungle-laden village in Sarawak, Malaysia, Jonathan Toyad has been playing games since the early 90s. He favors fighting games, RPGs, and rhythm titles above every other genre, and occasionally spaces out like Pavlov's dog to video game music on his iPod.
Open-ended downloadable sandbox game reaches new sales milestone 10 months after launch.
Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition has sold more than 6 million units, developer 4J Studios has announced through its Twitter account. This is up from 5 million at the end of 2012.
The game sells for $20, meaning it has generated $120 million since its original launch in May 2012.
Sales are likely to increase further, as a disc-based Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition is coming to United States retailers on April 30. This will be followed by launches in Australia, Hong Kong, India, New Zealand, Singapore, and Taiwan in early June.
For more on Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, check out GameSpot's review.
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
BioWare general manager says studio's upcoming titles are using DICE's latest engine.
Both Dragon Age III: Inquisition and the next Mass Effect game will be powered by DICE's Frostbite 3 engine, BioWare has said.
"For everyone who's been asking after the #BF4 reveal, #DA3 and the next Mass Effect are also using Frostbite 3. It's awesome," said BioWare Edmonton and Montreal general manager Aaryn Flynn on Twitter.
The Frostbite 3 engine was announced hand in hand with DICE's Battlefield 4 reveal at GDC 2013 earlier this week. 17 minutes of Battlefield 4 footage was shown, detailing many of the visual improvements DICE has made to the Frostbite engine since Battlefield 3.
The Frostbite 3 engine does not currently support the Wii U, however. Battlefield executive producer Patrick Bach recently told Eurogamer that "the Wii U is not a part of our focus right now."
In a blog post back in September 2012, Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah said BioWare was using Frostbite 2 as a "foundation" for development on Dragon Age III.
Both Dragon Age III and Battlefield 4 are due to launch later in 2013.
Martin Gaston has absolutely never at all had the song from Beauty and the Beast sung to him at any point during his life, ever.
Atlus just announced that it will be adapting Persona 3 into an animated film.
The movie is called Persona 3 The Movie #1: Spring of Birth and will be in Japanese theatres this Fall. The main character from the game, whose name was determined by the player, is officially called Makoto Yuki in the film. Production for the film will be handled by animation company AIC A.S.T.A., who are known for anime series GunxSword, Blood+, and the adaptation of Persona 4.
The film is being directed by Noriaki Akitaya, whose directorial works include the Bakuman and Code Geass anime series. Atlus and AIC A.S.T.A has yet to confirm if the adaptation will be split into multiple films, given the movie's naming conventions. For more information on the film, check out the official site.
Persona 3 for the PS2 was praised for its storyline, production values and meshing of gameplay styles. The game was also released for the PSP and was also praised for its story and new features exclusive for the platform.
Splinter Cell: Blacklist developer Ubisoft Toronto has already begun working with other Ubisoft studios on the next Assassin's Creed title, which is due after this year's Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.
Ubisoft Toronto studio manager Jade Raymond confirmed the news to Polygon, and teased that the developer has five projects ready to go after shipping Splinter Cell: Blacklist in August.
"We have two big collaborations coming that we're not talking about, on two of the biggest franchises at Ubisoft," said Raymond. "We also have two new IP." The fifth project will be related to Splinter Cell.
Raymond also said that Ubisoft Toronto has completed its work on the multiplayer for the long-dormant Rainbow Six: Patriots.
While Raymond wouldn't talk about specifics relating to the next Assassin's Creed, she said it was great to be working with some of the people that helped start the Assassin's Creed franchise back in 2007.
"The thing that's great to me is that there is still some of my favorite people who, you know, we were in the trenches shipping that first one," said Raymond. "We lived through all of that stuff together and some of those guys are still on the franchise and have been there."
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is being developed by eight Ubisoft studios: Montreal, Singapore, Sofia, Annecy, Kiev, Quebec, Bucharest, and Montpellier. It will be released for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, and Wii U on October 29 in North America and November 1 in Europe.
For more on Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.
Playing the game and taking my time to take it all in. It is extraordinary quite frankly (agree wholeheartedly about the first hour). There will not be a more awe inspiring, fear inducing scene in any game/movie/TV show than the first meeting with the Songbird. My favourite moment so far and if the game tops this then I will be staggered.
Although, I always enjoy watching the 'Possession' spell at work. I laugh my rear end every time at the twisted genius of watching someone beat themselves to death with a bat.
Popcap has announced that Plants vs. Zombies 2 will launch early this summer.
The follow-up to the perennially successful Plants vs. Zombies was due to be released later in spring, though Popcap has still not specified what platforms the sequel will be available on. The original Plants vs. Zombies has sprouted up on PC, XBLA, PlayStation 3, Vita, DS, iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 7.
Developer Popcap is also working on a Facebook spin-off for the series called Plants vs. Zombies Adventures, which is launching now as a limited closed beta ahead of an official release later in spring.
Curt Bererton, head of developer PopCap's San Francisco office, calls Plants vs. Zombies Adventures "a highly accessible, zombie-zapping adaptation of the original game designed specifically for Facebook."
The Facebook game will offer up new types of zombies and plants, a new way of setting up your plant defences, and leaderboards.
Popcap says Plants vs. Zombies Adventure is the first of "several" adaptations of the original tower defence game coming in the next year.
I've just started playing this at 2560x1440 on PC on a 27" monitor on ultra and it's jaw-droppingly beautiful.
It's a pity these videos can't be seen as a helpful way for an individual who has multiple consoles to make an informed decision about on which platform they might like to make their purchase on, but then they don't encompass gameplay differences and performance issues between platforms. Unfortunately these videos and the discussions they generate just come across and as some sort of macho p*ssing competition of "my hardware is better than your hardware".
As long as you're happy with how your version of Bioshock looks then that's all that matters.
System update shown to shave around 10 seconds off loading the Wii U system menu.
Nintendo has released a video detailing the machine's upcoming spring system update, which shows improvements to loading the Wii U's system menu when exiting software.
In the video, exiting to the Wii U's system menu from New Super Mario Bros. U takes about seven seconds with the new update. On the old version it's shown taking roughly 17 seconds.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said in January that Nintendo would improve the system's loading times by releasing two system updates for the Wii U this year, with the second due later in 2013.
Earlier this month Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot pledged to support the Wii U but said the the machine needed to sell more units. "We think Wii U is a great machine. But it just has to sell more," he said at the time.
Martin Gaston has absolutely never at all had the song from Beauty and the Beast sung to him at any point during his life, ever.
Here's how good BioShock Infinite can look on a top-spec PC. Update: now with 2560x1600 resolution YouTube videos.
BioShock Infinite is a gorgeous game, one that mixes an impeccable sense of style, art, and technical mastery. It's safe to say that Irrational has created one of the most visually striking games of this generation, but just how good can the game look? The UK team ran BioShock Infinite at Ultra Quality settings with a resolution of 2560x1600 using the beefiest in-office PC: an Intel i7 3960X processor overclocked to 4.2GHz and 16GB of PC3-12800 G.Skill RAM lodged into an ASUS CG8890 motherboard, powered with an Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan.
Here are a few spoiler-free (unless you want to know absolutely nothing about the game whatsoever, in which case back away now) shots of the game's first 30 minutes (click on an image to see it in full size) alongside two YouTube videos showing the game at 2560x1600 resolution.
Be sure to check out GameSpot's full review here.
Martin Gaston has absolutely never at all had the song from Beauty and the Beast sung to him at any point during his life, ever.
PlayStation Network exclusive Rain has been shown off in six minutes of new gameplay footage.
The game, which is being developed by Tokyo Jungle developer PlayStation C.A.M.P!, was first shown off at Gamescom last year.
In Rain, players take the role of a lost boy who is chasing after a girl with an invisible silhouette. The game features a mix of puzzle and stealth elements, as players must avoid the ghostly apparitions while pursuing the girl. The boy can only be seen when standing in rain, and various visual and audio cues are in place to help the occasionally invisible protagonist navigate through the game's environment.
The new footage takes place in the first chapter of the game, which is titled "The Children and the Night." The demo shows off some of the game's climbing and movement, and highlights how the frequent use of on-screen text both guides players through the game while narrating its story. The player is also shown running away and hiding from a pair of dog-like monsters.
Key themes in the game, according to Sony, are uncertainty, fear, and solitude.
Rain is due for release on PlayStation Network in 2013.
No specific reason given for delay; no new release window specified.
Gamers hoping to play an English version of Phantasy Star Online 2 will have to wait a little longer.
According to Sega (via Polygon), the upcoming free-to-play MMO will not be out in early 2013 as was previously announced. Its release window has been pushed back to an unconfirmed period.
Sega has not provided details on the reason for the delay at this point in time.
PSO2 was out in Japan in July 2012 for the PC. The game was ported onto the PS Vita last February of this year.
Born and raised from a jungle-laden village in Sarawak, Malaysia, Jonathan Toyad has been playing games since the early 90s. He favors fighting games, RPGs, and rhythm titles above every other genre, and occasionally spaces out like Pavlov's dog to video game music on his iPod.
Square Enix president Yoichi Wada has resigned from the company.
Yoichi Wada, whose long-running career in the games industry saw him become Square Enix president in 2000, will be replaced by Yousuke Matsuda. Wada will also no longer serve as a representative director to the company, though it was not said if he was leaving Square Enix entirely.
The resignation follows the announcement that the company expects to make an "extraordinary loss" in revenue for the current financial year, ending March 31.
Slow sales of titles in America and Europe are the problem, said Square Enix. The publisher's most recent title was the critically successful reboot of Tomb Raider, and in 2012 released Hitman: Absolution, Sleeping Dogs, Quantum Conundrum, and Heroes of Ruin.
The performance of these titles has triggered Square Enix to undergo major restructuring of its development policy, organisational structure, and business models. Due to the costs of this restructuring, Square Enix expects to post a loss of 10 billion Yen for the financial year ending March 31.
Right now Square Enix is working on Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII and HD versions of Final Fantasy X and X-2, and promised a new Final Fantasy announcement at E3 2013. The company also recently revealed Eidos Montreal's next-gen Thief reboot, which is due for release in 2014.
Matsuda has been working for Square Enix since 2001, when he joined the company as a senior vice president. His promotion to president is subject to a resolution by Square Enix's board of directors, who will convene after the company's 33rd annual general meeting of shareholders in June.
Always great to watch Danny, i dusted off Dungeon Keeper 2 the other week and now i'm doing this. Bullfrog inspired me from a very young age so it's great to still have their games tucked away, get just as much satisfaction playing old games as the most recent.
Developer Double Fine has announced Broken Age as the title of its Kickstarter success story Double Fine Adventure.
Broken Age is a point-and-click adventure that revolves around the stories of a young boy and girl who lead parallel lives. The boy lives in isolation under the protection of a motherly computer and longs for adventure, whereas the girl has been chosen to be sacrificed to a monster but decides to fight back.
The player will switch between both characters during the course of the game.
Double Fine has also opened pre-orders for the game on its website, offering a DRM-free version of Broken Age on PC, Mac, and Linux for $15.
$30 gets players Backer Access, which gives access to exclusive backer-only forums, a digital soundtrack, access to development materials, and all the episodes of 2 Player Productions' documentary series charting the development of the title.
Both the regular and Backer edition provide access to the Broken Age beta, but the site has no mention of a release date.
Broken Age, when it was known as Double Fine Adventure, raised over $3.3 million on crowdfunding site Kickstarter from over 87,000 backers in March last year.
Gears of War: Judgment has emerged top of the UK charts in its first week on sale, pushing Tomb Raider down to second place.
While Gears of War: Judgment topped the chart, Gears of War 3 sold more than four times as many copies back in its opening week in September 2011.
Activision's The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, an FPS based on the AMC TV show that's just about to conclude its third season, debuts in third place.
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, which released last week on 3DS and Wii U, lands in seventh place, behind FIFA 13, Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2, and God of War: Ascension.
55 per cent of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate's sales were on 3DS, with 45 per cent going to the Wii U.
Rounding out the top 10 is SimCity in eighth, Far Cry 3 is ninth, and Call of Duty: Black Ops II is tenth.
Other chart movement sees StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm drop twenty places to 23rd, and Aliens: Colonial Marines creep up from 21st to 16th. Nintendo Land also enters the UK chart for the first time in 2013 at 39th.
The Top 20 UK chart for the week ending March 23:
1. Gears of War: Judgment
2. Tomb Raider
3. The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
4. FIFA 13
5. Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2
6. God of War: Ascension
7. Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate
8. SimCity
9. Far Cry 3
10. Call of Duty: Black Ops II
11. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
12. Crysis 3
13. Assassin's Creed III
14. Skylanders Giants
15. Need for Speed: Most Wanted
16. Aliens: Colonial Marines
17. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
18. Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
19. Hitman Absolution
20. LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes
BOSTON--Firaxis today announced during a PAX East panel that Civlization V: Brave New World will launch July 9 in North America, followed by a release in Europe on July 12.
Brave New World is the second expansion for 2010's Civilization V, following last summer's Gods & Kings add-on. The expansion is geared around tweaking the game's culture and diplomacy mechanics and also offers nine new Civilizations, eight new Wonders, and two new scenarios.
Brave New World also introduces the World Congress and the concept of international trade routes. The World Congress will convene on issues like trade sanctions, hosting the World Games, and the use of nuclear weapons.
BOSTON--Today during PAX East presentation, Firaxis Games announced that XCOM: Enemy Unknown is "coming soon" to iOS devices. The game will be playable on both iPad and iPod Touch.
The game is up and running for iOS at present, but Firaxis said it will need an additional few months before the game is ready for release. No price for XCOM: Enemy Unknown for iOS was mentioned.
Firaxis also today announced that XCOM: Enemy Unknown will launch for Mac April 25.
@redskins26rocs Damn it, edited too late.
I was trying to put that I would only want that, if it would mean that the single player FOs would still be released. That probably wouldn't happen, unless a different developer did the other.
What I wouldn't want to see is another KOTOR.
BOSTON--Civilization V and XCOM: Enemy Unknown developer Firaxis Games today teased its next major project.
Before debuting a teaser trailer for the game during a PAX East panel today, designer Jake Solomon said, "It's big," noting that "we're not going to be able to talk about it for a while."
The trailer showed a shadowy figure and featured voiceover saying the following: "Hello, Commander. The war continues at great cost. We now believe another force is at work against us. If not dealt with swiftly, it could destroy us. What we are able to tell you…" it went on, before fading out.
At this time, text on-screen appeared that read: "Signal Lost."
The teaser trailer was captured by Kotaku . No information about platforms or release date was provided. If an official version of the teaser trailer is made available, it will be embedded here.
Quantic Dream's Beyond: Two Souls has been made an official selection of the Tribeca Film Festival for 2013.
The screening on April 27 will feature a one-hour scene from the game, followed by a Q&A session with director David Cage and actress Ellen Page. A new trailer for the game will also be shown.
It is the second game to do so, following the inclusion of L.A. Noire into the cinema festival back in 2011.
Beyond: Two Souls is the next narrative-led game from French studio Quantic Dream and features Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe in its cast. Players control Page's character, Jodie Holmes, alongside the mysterious spiritual entity that has been tethered to her since birth. GameSpot saw the game earlier this week.
The game will launch for PlayStation 3 on October 8, but Quantic Dream has already said it's working on a new title for PlayStation 4.
This year the annual Manhattan film festival will also feature talks from Clint Eastwood, Darren Aronofsky, and Ben Stiller.
This game shows the extreme of many elements. You might as well say: ''why are there so many tears?'', or ''Why is there so much screaming, love, excitement et cetera''. The explosions are just a part of the visual aspect of the game. Btw, it seems like the people below are mad as f*ck. Somebody needs their coffee, lmao.
THQ's collapse was down to "bad choices" made by the publisher according to Saints Row developer Scott Phillips. Speaking to GameSpot about the company's collapse, Phillips blamed not just poor decision making, but also a lack of investment into mobile games.
"It was uDraw and bad choices like not getting into mobile", said Phillips. "I don't even think they were thinking about mobile as of the beginning of this year, nor were they planning on iPad games. They were just behind the curve on everything and that ultimately hurt them."
Senior Producer Jim Boon placed much of the blame on uDraw, a tablet peripheral for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii that fell over $100 million below the company's sales expectations.
"When you have things like the kids business--which by their own admission they wished they had gotten out of the a bit earlier than they did--there's a lot of investment that went into that", said Boon. "Then there's the lynchpin of it all with the uDraw issue. That came out right when Saints Row The Third Came out, so here on the one hand is this huge hit for THQ, and everyone's so excited about that, and then here's a $100 million loss as the same time for uDraw."
The collapse of THQ led to Saints Row developer Volition being purchased for $22.3 million by Koch Media. Saints Row IV is now being published under Koch Media's subsidiary brand, Deep Silver. Boon told GameSpot that while the transition between the two publishers wasn't entirely without issue, it hasn't affected the studio's creative direction.
"I don't think we were really worried about [switching publishers] for our jobs, say, because with THQ they had the Clearlake investment that they were going for", said Boon. "We always looked like we had an avenue where we knew we were gonna be safe. The concern for us was who would ultimately be the owner of us and what would that mean? Say if it was a different publisher that grabs us, are they going to want to change the game, or are they going to want to change our culture or processes? Luckily with Deep Silver they've been totally great. It's the same process, the same culture, they've not asked us to make a single change on the game. It's been pretty seamless."
Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2 will be bundled together on one disc for PlayStation 3. PS Vita versions sold individually.
Square Enix has confirmed that the PlayStation 3 version of the Final Fantasy X HD remake will come with sequel Final Fantasy X-2.
Earlier this week Japanese manga magazine Shonen Jump announced the news for Japan, but now Square Enix has confirmed the bundle will be available worldwide
While the two games will be bundled together on one disc for the PlayStation 3, the PlayStation Vita versions of Final Fantasy X and X-2 will be sold separately.
Square Enix also released a new batch of screenshots for the game, comparing the new HD remaster with the original PlayStation 2 RPG.
No release date or price is currently mentioned, but Square Enix will release an official announcement trailer for the game on March 25.
The HD remake of 2001's Final Fantasy X was announced at Tokyo Game Show in 2011.
Has absolutely never at all had the song from Beauty and the Beast sung to him at any point during his life, ever.
BioShock designer and Irrational Games cofounder Ken Levine likes what's he's seen so far of the PlayStation 4. Speaking to GameSpot, the industry veteran praised the platform's new PC-based architecture, saying the design is gamer-friendly.
"I have to sit back and think about the next-generation. Obviously, more memory, more power is always a good thing. I love the fact that Sony's architecture is now much more aligned with the architecture of the PCs and[…]I can't say about the Xbox, but I presume they're continuing in that direction," Levine said.
"That will make life a lot better for gamers because you won't have that sort of diversification of resources in the same way that you had to do to support the differences in the [current-generation platforms]," he added. "I don't mean Move vs. Kinect, I mean specifically the architecture underneath. So that's a positive."
Overall, Levine said he hasn't yet give much specific thought to how he might approach development for next-generation platforms. However, he did make clear that his ambition for greater detail will be an area the new, more powerful machines can help.
"Obviously, more memory, more power is always a good thing."
"I really haven't sat back and thought the particular features or what I would do with the additional power besides the obvious things: I like detail and more power gives you more detail. That's obvious," Levine said.
Levine noted that this increase in power will not be without its share of potential difficulties.
"I think you then start running into, at some point, an issue of can you produce the content to fill that detail? Because BioShock Infinite really strained our[…]we produced a lot of content if you look at that level of detail," he said. "So then you go beyond the systems; can we build an infrastructure internally to build enough content to fill out that space? And that's going to be another challenge."
Levine's latest body of work is BioShock Infinite, which launches next Tuesday. For more, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.
"I don't have a thought for our next game," Irrational Games creative director and cofounder Ken Levine says.
After years of development and multiple delays, BioShock Infinite is due out worldwide next week. But what's next for its Quincy, Mass. developer Irrational Games?
Creative director and studio cofounder Ken Levine doesn't know.
Responding to a question about whether or not he is excited about the arrival of next-generation platforms and the new features and capabilities they bring, Levine told GameSpot, "I don't have a thought for our next game, so it's kind of hard to even think about that."
The Irrational Games careers page lists 13 open positions across a range of disciplines and experience levels. In addition, the company recently hired former Epic Games producer Rod Fergusson as executive vice president of development.
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
Quantic Dream "categorically refused" an idea that upcoming supernatural adventure Beyond: Two Souls should feature star Ellen Page holding a gun as its cover art.
Speaking to GameSpot, Quantic Dream co-founder and executive producer Guillaume de Fondaumière admitted that the studio needed to be careful in how it chooses to present its game to a wide audience.
"We have to be very careful," said Fondaumière. "We're working closely with the marketing folks at Sony to portray the game in the right light, to be able to talk to that diverse audience that we hope we will be able to reach with Beyond."
Like the studio's previous title Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls is a narrative-led adventure that attempts to explore complex themes. But Beyond, which features elements of the supernatural and science fiction, features more action-heavy scenes than Heavy Rain.
"Indeed, there is some action in Beyond," continued Fondaumière. "But if we, for instance, put a pack art that's solely featuring action, first of all it's not going to be truthful to what the game is and then, your wife for instance, is not going to feel attracted to this. She'll say 'ok, well that's not unique, it's one of your video games.'"
"So yes, we need to be careful and to make sure that whenever we communicate on this game, whenever we market it, that we manage to get across this variety in themes and this uniqueness that the project beholds."
So did anyone involved in the game try to pitch that Beyond's front cover be a figure of Ellen Page's character holding a gun? "Yes, and we categorically refused it," said Fondaumière. "It's kind of natural for agencies, you know, who are far away from the project, to pitch you different things. 'It's a video game? Okay, it needs to have a gun otherwise it's not even a game.' But our job, with David [Cage], is to make sure that everyone understands what is specific about this game and to make sure that we have the right pack shot, and the right imagery supporting the project, and the right image is being communicated to the public."
As with Heavy Rain, Quantic Dream's desire for Beyond: Two Souls is to reach a mature audience that might not be particularly interested in traditional AAA games. "Most people I know that are above 35 years old, do not play [games]," said Fondaumière. "Women around me don't play, or seldom play, or play very specific games. I think it's an important moment in the industry as a whole; it's the moment where we need to define precisely who we want to appeal to."
"We always thought at Quantic that was a potential for reaching out to a larger audience, and not only target the core gamers, or only a male audience. That we can be a little bit more open. And with Beyond we are hoping that it will appeal, for instance, to women. Because of the themes that we have that are similar to what women like in certain TV series, or watching certain movies, for instance, or reading certain books."
Recently, BioShock Infinite creative director Ken Levine likened the decision to feature protagonist Booker DeWitt holding a gun on BioShock Infinite's box art as salad dressing.
"Our gaming world, we sometimes forget, is so important to us," said Levine at the time, "but… there are plenty of products that I buy that I don't spend a lot of time thinking about. My salad dressing. If there's a new salad dressing coming out, I would have no idea," he continued. "I use salad dressing; I don't read Salad Dressing Weekly. I don't care who makes it, I don't know any of the personalities in the salad dressing business. For some people, [games are] like salad dressing. Or movies, or TV shows. It was definitely a reality check for us."
Beyond: Two Souls will be released for PlayStation 3 on October 8.
Ultima creator Richard Garriott believes what's holding the game industry back is a dearth of talent. In an interview with PC Gamer, the designer and space traveler said some proficient designers exist, but the difficult nature of the skill is why the examples are so few.
"I think there's really very few great game designers," Garriott said. "I think Chris Roberts is one of them, Will Wright's another, Peter Molyneux is another. They clearly exist, but on the whole, I think that the design talent in our industry is dramatically lower than we need, as an industry. It's a very hard skill to learn."
Garriott continued, saying that he has yet to come across a single game designer as skilled as he is, with the exception of Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts.
"But other than a few exceptions, like Chris Roberts, I've met virtually no one in our industry who I think is close to as good a game designer as I am. I'm not saying that because I think I'm so brilliant. What I'm saying is, I think most game designers really just suck, and I think there's a reason why."
He explained that unlike the art and programming components of game development, it is very difficult to receive a formal education for design. This, Garriott argued, is why unqualified people end up as designers, in turn leading to poor design in games.
"So we're leaning on a lot of designers who get that job because they're not qualified for the other jobs, rather than that they are really strongly qualified as a designer," Garriott said. "It's really hard to go to school to be a good designer."
Garriott's latest project is an "Ultimate RPG" called Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues for PC. The game's Kickstarter campaign successfully attracted its $1 million funding target in 10 days. The final product is expected to release in 2014.
Shares of Electronic Arts tumbled Tuesday, following Monday's announcement that six-year CEO John Riccitiello had resigned from the publisher.
At market close yesterday, EA's stock value was down 8.3 percent to $17.15, after news that the executive would leave effective March 30.
The market opens today at 9:30 a.m. EDT.
Riccitiello explained in his resignation letter that EA has "fallen short" of the internal operating plan set one year ago. "EA's shareholders and employees expect better and I am accountable for the miss," he said.
As part of Riccitiello's separation agreement with EA, he will continue to draw a salary for 24 months and maintain vesting of unvested options until Nov. 30, 2013, with those stock options exercisable until Feb. 28, 2014.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Riccitiello's total exit package is valued at around $4.7 million, though this figure could balloon further if EA stock bounces back.
Electronic Arts has again been included in The Consumerist's "Worst Company In America" annual community-voted tournament. Participants were chosen by reader nominations, which were then culled to 32 companies.
The consumer affairs blog has EA in the first round squaring off against ABInBev, the multinational beverage company behind major beer brands like Corona, Stella Artois, and Budweiser, among others.
EA is the only game-specific company appearing in the bracket. Other companies in the running for 2013 Worst Company In America include Apple, Ticketmaster, Wal-Mart, and Bank of America.
If EA comes out on top in this year's tournament, it will be a repeat victory for the company. The Consumerist named EA the 2012 Worst Company In America, knocking out Bank of America in the final round to take home the "Golden Poo" award.
EA CEO John Riccitiello resigned this week, explaining that "EA's shareholders and employees expect better and I am accountable for the miss" in financial guidance. This came after a SimCity launch marred by server woes but also 1.1 million in total sales.
This week we check out LEGO City Undercover, Gears of War: Judgment, The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, Assassin's Creed III - The Betrayal, Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory and Trials Evolution: Gold Edition.
Posted Mar 15, 2013 | 2:25 | 14,228 Views
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Sequel to mobile hit revealed on Twitter by Ryan Seacrest.
Draw Something 2 has been announced via the Twitter account of television personality Ryan Seacrest.
"I somehow convinced them to give me #DrawSomething2 first…this may be the best Mariah & Randy have ever looked," he said in reference to American Idol judges Mariah Carey and Randy Jackson.
Dan Porter, CEO of developer OMGPOP, followed up Seacrest's tweet by posting the game's logo.
The follow up to last year's successful mobile game will offer "new ways to draw & connect" according to Porter, with Seacrest's screenshots showing off new paint swatches and various other additions to the turn-based drawing game.
No release date for Draw Something 2 was mentioned.
Seacrest has also been lined up as the host for Draw Something's upcoming US game show adaptation.
Has absolutely never at all had the song from Beauty and the Beast sung to him at any point during his life, ever.
Two of tech's biggest competitors are taking a very different approach to the next generation of gaming with Sony and Android, but which is making the right moves?
Earlier this month, Sony took to the stage in New York and unveiled the PlayStation 4. And as expected, the internet--at least within gaming circles--went into meltdown. All the classic console-launch moments were there: visually striking demos, a new controller, masses of mind-numbing exec-speak, and yes, even talk of polygons. But the most interesting part of the presentation arrived early on. There, Sony revealed the hardware that would be powering its new socially aware games console, and it was a world away from the complex, supercomputer-power touted by the PS3 and its Cell processor.
With the PS4, Sony has taken what are essentially off-the-shelf PC parts and used them to build a console. That's exciting for lots of reasons: the system should be easier to develop for, and porting games from PC to console or vice-versa should be easier too. But the switch to x86 has ramifications outside of just games development. For the company behind the hardware in the PS4, it's a potential financial boon. That company is AMD, a US-based chip-maker that's been making chips since 1969.
Judging by AMD's current balance sheet, it'll no doubt be hoping that its place in the PS4 (as well as the Wii U, and potentially the next Xbox) proves lucrative. Just recently it sold its Austin-based HQ for $164 million to raise cash, while a leading analyst called it "un-investable" following an operating loss of $131 million in its quarterly earnings report. Those aren't pretty numbers for a company that was once trading at over $40 dollars a share: today its shares are worth a mere $2.60 each.
The question is how much those console deals are worth to AMD. While they're certainly not the only thing the company has going for it--its upcoming roadmap of APUs and GPUs have generally been well received--the console deals provide a steady stream of income. Indeed, the company noted on its end of year financial statement that declines in its graphics segment were "partially offset by a seasonal increase in game console revenue", so for AMD at least, the sector remains a valuable one. But its competition is fiercer than ever. Intel has gone from strength to strength with its desktop and laptop chips, while ARM continues to dominate in mobile, a market that is growing at an extraordinary rate: the most recent IDC numbers show tablet shipments at well over half of that of PC shipments and growing fast.
Judging by AMD's current balance sheet, it'll no doubt be hoping that its place in the PS4 proves lucrative.
That's bad news for AMD, which currently doesn't even have a mobile and tablet chip on the market. Meanwhile, Intel is slowly beginning to compete with its refreshed Atom CPUs, but it's AMD's other competitor that poses the greatest threat: Nvidia. For years now the two companies have been battling it out in the GPU market, and both have claimed to offer the world's fastest GPU in the past. But unlike AMD, Nvidia is posting record profits--around $174 million according to its last earnings call. And it does have a chip for mobile in the form of Tegra, not to mention it holds the current crown in GPU performance with Titan.
For AMD then, the console market is more important than ever. And that's not just from a monetary point of view: there's the potential to capture the hearts and minds of gamers and developers too. After all, if developers are primarily targeting consoles--which for the moment remains the most popular platform for playing games outside of Angry Birds--then it stands to reason they would choose to develop on AMD hardware, or make optimisations for console that are easily translated over to desktop AMD GPUs. That might not spell total disaster for Nvidia, but it could start a worrisome trend that sees developers and consumers move away from its hardware to that of its chief competitor.
It's a worry that we put to Tony Tamasi, the senior VP of content and technology at Nvidia: "Let's assume that you're right, and both Sony and Microsoft are built off an AMD chip", Tamasi told us, "we're actually kind of excited by it."
"Developers actually develop on a PC. The problem today is that when they target a console, they're targeting a piece of hardware that's more than an order of magnitude lower power than today's PCs. And frankly, that really holds back content developers. So while they could do amazing DX11 compute and awesome shader things on the PC, the fact that they have to support these very old, very low performance consoles (PS3, Xbox 360)--one of which is of course based on Nvidia--is a bummer. It impedes the content development."
"The fact the next generation consoles are kind of mid-range PCs is a good thing. From an optimisation perspective the next consoles are based on x86 CPUs, and based on essentially current generation GPUs, so there's really nothing special there. In the end, developers are trying to deliver the best experience on any platform that their game runs on. Having been through Xbox one and PS3, I can tell you that plenty of games that ran on a PS3 or ran on the first Xbox didn't have any uniquely optimised or differentiated behaviour on Nvidia on a PC than they otherwise would have had."
For Nvidia, it seems that any PC hardware in a console can provide benefits to the PC market, whether it uses the company's hardware or that of its competitor. Perhaps we won't see any AMD optimisations: only time will tell. Regardless, Nvidia has decided it doesn't want to be a part of the next-gen consoles: its hardware is nowhere to be seen in the PS4, the Wii U, or--if the rumours prove true--the next Xbox either. The question is, why not?
The Japan qualifiers for the FIFA Ultimate Team Asia AllStars tournament took place on March 16 at the M Event Bar & Space in Shibuya, Tokyo.
The shoutcasters who were on board were Tsubasa and BunBunMaru; the latter is a renowned Famitsu writer and former Virtua Fighter 2 pro gamer. The top three players will be given a chance to participate in the FIFA Ultimate Team Asia AllStars finals held at the Avalon club in Singapore for a shot at A$10,000. Check out the photos below.
After the dust had settled, the winners were Jumpei "JUN_Fifa" Matsumoto, Kei "Kuranya" Umezu and Taiga "StanSmith" Kishi. All three of them were happy at given the chance to compete in Singapore and would go together as a team to take first place in the tournament. StanSmith added that he's confident as he's been studying the Australian and Singaporean players.
Each of their strategies during the qualifiers revolved around adapting to the players they were given. StanSmith said that he stuck with the 3-5-2 formation that worked to his advantage, while Kuranya had used the same dribbling and formation tactics as in his online sessions way before the tournament.
All of them said that the FIFA 13 Japanese community is small could use an improvement and more events to promote its existence. This was largely due to the Pro Evolution Soccer series being bigger in the region; the game has licensing rights for the Japanese teams from the J-League.
In any case, GameSpot Asia wishes them congratulations, as well as wish them luck for the upcoming finals. For more updates, head to the FIFA Ultimate Team Asia AllStars Tournament page. If you missed it, check out the replay here.
Tomb Raider has topped the UK chart for the second week in a row, with a 72 percent drop in sales from last week still enough to force Sony's God of War: Ascension into a second place finish.
God of War: Ascension managed less than half of the week one sales than its predecessor God of War III did in 2010, though it's the second-biggest opening for a title in God of War series so far.
Blizzard's StarCraft II expansion Heart of the Swarm finished third, ahead of Namco Bandai's Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 in fourth. The original Sniper never managed a chart finish above eighth.
SimCity dropped to fifth place, ahead of FIFA 13 in sixth.
Far Cry 3 charted seventh, Crysis 3 eighth, Call of Duty: Black Ops II ninth, and The Sims 3: University Life in tenth.
The Top 20 UK charts for the week ending March 16:
1. Tomb Raider
2. God of War: Ascension
3. StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm
4. Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2
5. SimCity
6. FIFA 13
7. Far Cry 3
8. Crysis 3
9. Call of Duty: Black Ops II
10. The Sims 3: University Life
11. Assassin's Creed III
12. Hitman Absolution
13. Skylanders Giants
14. Need for Speed: Most Wanted
15. Dead Space 3
16. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
17. Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes
18. Grand Theft Auto IV
19. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
20. Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3
PC strategy game has added two million active concurrent players in five months, says developer.
League of Legends regularly exceeds 5 million concurrent global players, developer Riot Games has announced.
The new milestone is a sizable increase over the 3 million concurrent players statistic Riot Games released for the popular MOBA back in October 2012.
Riot reports that League of Legends boasts 32 million monthly active players, with 12 million playing daily.
Valve's Dota 2, another popular MOBA, was revealed at the start of March to be digital distribution platform Steam's most played game of all time, exceeding 300,000 concurrent players.
Steam's previous record holder for concurrent players, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, managed 287,000 back in November 2011.
Has absolutely never at all had the song from Beauty and the Beast sung to him at any point during his life, ever.
Developer Gamepot's latest online venture doesn't sport the refinement of World of Warcraft, the large community of Guild Wars, or the political intrigue of EVE Online. In fact, to look at Wizardry Online, you may be fooled into thinking you've somehow tumbled backward in time to the late '90s, where the low-quality artwork and textures might have been more appropriate. The game has no trouble rehashing tired tropes for its own gain. But for all that it does wrong, it boasts a particular brand of scrappiness that keeps you plugging away, even when the danger of permadeath looms large.
Wizardry Online is an austere fairy tale that falls somewhere between the healthy rigors of Final Fantasy XI and the masochism of Dark Souls. This dark fantasy doesn't stray far from the trappings associated with standard MMO design, but some interesting decisions keep it afloat, and there's no admission price to hinder you from fulfilling your curiosity. Unfortunately, none of this is evident in the initial hours. Perhaps that's why it seems that the aim of Wizardry Online, in keeping with the dungeon-crawling lore of the original Wizardry series, is to give you as challenging an experience as possible while still baiting you to continue.
After installation and several updates, the client greets you with some cinematic, Final Fantasy-esque fanfare. You're deposited into a seemingly never-ending online abyss after clicking "start." Once an arbitrary amount of time has passed, sometimes up to 15 minutes or more, you may be allowed onto the server. Using Alt + Tab to multitask while waiting to join a server isn't an option; you simply wait for the privilege of connecting. It's a rotten setup, especially when trying to join during what you would assume are the peak hours for play. It's also extremely frustrating to weather unpredictable wait times only to be booted from the server multiple times in one session, or to endure its lengthy load times, which Wizardry Online struggles with far too often.
A series of shoddy menus and options are waiting once you've made it server-side, and they're riddled with uninteresting color palettes and character models that do little to entice you. In fact, the game as a whole is devoid of any appealing graphics. After you're subjected to meandering lore and walls of text, it's time to assign a class. You choose from five different races: humans, dwarves, elves, gnomes, and the Tarutaru-like Porkul. The character creation screen shows off unusual character designs, such as the most feminine gnomes you'll ever see in your life and strangely unappealing elves; it's almost as if these races' established qualities swapped places.
After choosing an avatar and settling on a race, you need to select a class and alignment, although there isn't much choice to be had here. Alignments are nothing more than one additional stat to track and mean little in the grand scheme of things, so your class ultimately decides your fate. Gnomes fit the priest role, dwarves lead the charge as warriors, elves are powerful mages, and the Porkul are sneaky pickpockets. Humans are as vanilla as can be. A roll of the dice completes the package for your character's stats and can grant bonuses to races that happen to be awful at adapting to particular classes--say, a Porkul as a warrior. If you're just starting out, you can take chances when it comes to rerolling new characters, but seasoned veterans will want to carefully pick and choose, picking the best class for the race suited for the job. Still, it's unfortunate that races represent little more than aesthetic value; each character looks and plays practically the same.
Once you're free to roam the world, you will want to find companions: this is a game you don't flourish in when flying solo. The in-game group finder goes a long way to ensure that you can always find a few fellow adventurers to complete the traditional tank-DPS-healer trifecta, which becomes invaluable when scouring the various dungeons. Quests and other tasks are assigned via hub worlds, and most of the action takes place deep in the heart of sewers and labyrinthine tunnels rife with puzzles. Considering you're spending time within smaller cramped spaces populated with high-level players, you're going to want someone watching your back at all times, and traveling alone is a great way to meet your permanent end much faster.
Combat is where you end up ferreting out the fun, which is often overshadowed by the messy UI and more brown graphics than a desert-themed first-person shooter. Active attack and defense moves are natural and much more kinetic than those of traditional MMO hotkey combat. Though each character class feels the same whether you're using magic or brute strength to conquer your enemies, having to exercise a bit of skill to land a hit on a rare enemy provides an extra level of immersion. You feel as though you have control to exert over this persistent world, and that's what ends up elevating this oft-confusing endeavor to a status beyond meager. As long as you can successfully sustain your health and mana (which do not regenerate), you're on your way to looting other players' corpses instead of littering each pathway with your hours of earned items and gold.
This game is atrocious pay to win everything from mounts to clothing last 30days only, and you can pour cash directly into your leveling literally paying to win plus the fact that if you dont pay your screwed because without VIP you cant level as fast, you dont get any of the benefits of a VIP,Deluxe or Elite user...and worst of all the economy...the game has a bounded/unbounded money system. Unbounded money is the only money of value and its funded by the gold you put into the game by paying otherwise you CANT make money in this game...ever unless you grind for hours and hours and craft intensely to sell stuff.....horrible..in China they may think this is acceptable but in the Usa this game is gonna tank....
SimCity lead designer Stone Librande has posted a blog detailing how the game's simulation mechanics work, and has pledged to fix the game's traffic pathing.
This week numerous YouTube videos have surfaced from users who have found ways to highlight bugs and errors in the SimCity's simulation. Librande has clarified how the game's GlassBox engine processes information. "At the surface level, GlassBox is designed around the premise that 'Agents' are created to carry data to various 'Sinks' around the city. In SimCity, you can think of the 'Agents' as Sims and vehicles. The 'Sinks' are the buildings that receive money, happiness and other resources from these Agents."
"Our main focus right now is updating the pathing system that the Agents use to get to their Sinks. Running a successful city means keeping the traffic flowing and we are actively working to make this system better," Librande added. "One of the main bugs being highlighted at the moment is in the game's traffic system insisting on taking the shortest possible route to each location, causing massive traffic jams even when other roads are available."
"We understand that when cars always take the shortest route between point A and point B there will be unavoidable (and illogical) traffic jams, so we are returning these values to make the traffic flow more realistically," said Librande.
"To dig a little deeper," Librande added, "our roads will have a weighting system based on 25%, 50% and 75% capacity. As a road hits those marks it will become less and less appealing for other cars, increasing the likelihood of them taking an alternate path if one exists."
The traffic situation will be patched shortly, says Librande, and that the fixes are being tested internally at Maxis right now alongside other pathing issues, such as with multiple emergency services responding to issues one by one as opposed to simultaneously.
"We are working on additional fixes with the pathing of our Agents and these changes will streamline the way that the simulation unfolds in your city. For instance, emergency vehicles will not get blocked in their garages and will move into empty lanes to get around traffic jams. We're also working on preventing service vehicles from clumping up (for instance, only one fire truck will respond to a fire instead of two) and improving the way that Public Transportation operates in the city. We are currently testing a patch internally and hope to have it out to you soon."
Librande also detailed how some of the game's simulation mechanics actually work. He confirmed that SimCity's Sims do not lead realistic lives, but instead move to the nearest available job in the morning and leave for the closest vacant house in the evening. It means a Sim might go to a different job every day, and return home to a different family every evening.
"Ultimately we didn't feel that the cost of adding in that extra layer of micro detail made the macro game play richer. Game design is filled with tradeoffs and compromises like this and we are constantly evaluating these (and many other) decisions," said Librande.
Librande confirmed that Maxis is slowly re-enabling the features it switched off last week to help ease the game's overloaded servers. Regional achievements are now live on select servers, and leaderboards are up and running on the game's Test server. SimCity's Cheetah speed is still unavailable, and was not mentioned by Librande.
Yesterday a SimCity modder showed it was possible to circumvent the game's 20 minute disconnection timer, essentially making it possible to play the game, which by default insists on an always-online connection, indefinitely online.
Microsoft's highly touted Surface tablet line has sold around 1.5 million units since launch, coming up short of expectations, sources told Bloomberg.
Three people with knowledge of the matter said Microsoft has sold just over one million Surface RT units and around 400,000 Surface Pros since their debuts in October and February, respectively. Three million units were ordered in all, the sources said.
The 32GB Surface RT starts at $500, while the 64GB Surface Pro begins at $900.
By comparison, Apple sold 22.9 million iPads in the three-month period ended December 29.
In an effort to boost Surface sales, Microsoft will take steps to market the tablet line in new ways, the sources said. One source added that Microsoft has internally admitted a failure to persuade some customers to choose Surface over offerings from Apple and Samsung.
Nvidia passed on its hardware being used in the PlayStation 4 due to the "opportunity cost."
"I'm sure there was a negotiation that went on," Tony Tamasi, Senior VP of content and technology at Nvidia told GameSpot, "and we came to the conclusion that we didn't want to do the business at the price those guys were willing to pay."
"Having been through the original Xbox and PS3, we understand the economics of [console development] and the tradeoffs."
Announced by Sony earlier this month, the upcoming PS4 is powered by rival chip-maker AMD. The company is also strongly rumoured to be behind the hardware of the next Xbox, but Nvidia does not appear to be troubled by the loss.
"We're building a whole bunch of stuff," continued Tamasi, "and we had to look at console business as an opportunity cost. If we say, did a console, what other piece of our business would we put on hold to chase after that?"
"In the end, you only have so many engineers and so much capability, and if you're going to go off and do chips for Sony or Microsoft, then that's probably a chip that you're not doing for some other portion of your business. And at least in the case of Sony and Nvidia, in terms of PS4, AMD has the business and Nvidia doesn't. We'll see how that plays out from a business perspective I guess. It's clearly not a technology thing."
AMD will be hoping that its PS4 business pays off, having recently fallen on hard times. Earlier this week it sold its Austin-based HQ for $164 million to raise cash, while a leading analyst called it "un-investable" following an operating loss of $131 million in its quarterly earnings report.
In Nvidia's latest earnings call, the company posted a profit of $174 million.
← Find out everything we know about the PS4
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is being built by eight different Ubisoft studios and according to a new claim, may have a developer headcount of nearly 1,000.
Electronic Arts executive producer Giordano Contestabile recently tweeted, "Assassin's Creed IV is made by 7 studios and (I hear) nearly 1,000 people. Is this new new AAA?"
Asked to comment on this figure, a Ubisoft representative told GameSpot, "Ubisoft does not traditionally comment on developer headcount."
Ubisoft employs more than 7,450 people across the world, including 6,250 dedicated to game production. If Contestabile's claim is accurate, 16 percent of all Ubisoft production talent is working on Assassin's Creed: Black Flag.
The eight studios working on Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag are the company's outfits in Montreal, Singapore, Sofia, Annecy, Kiev, Quebec, Bucharest, and Montpellier.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag launches October 29. It is in development for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PC, Wii U, and "other" next-generation platforms. For more, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.
Developer says it has "no plans" to take over the operation of the IPL, is extending offers to those who lost jobs during recent IPL6 cancellation.
Over the last few weeks, Blizzard Entertainment's name has come up as one of the leading developer candidates interested in buying out the IGNProLeague. Sources tell GameSpot that the developer behind the widely popular competitive esport StarCraft are interested in acquiring the production talent from IGNProLeague, which includes general manager David Ting.
Blizzard has provided a statement to GameSpot indicating no such deal will be made, but that the company has extended offers to those who lost jobs during the recent IPL6 cancellation.
"We typically don't comment on rumors or speculation, but we want to make an exception here because it's important to dispel any misconceptions surrounding Blizzard and the IPL," a representative from Blizzard Entertainment told GameSpot. "While we were fans of the IPL and disappointed to learn that it was coming to an end, we have no plans to take over operation of the IPL business or operate third-party eSports leagues. Our focus is on making great games and supporting our players. When it comes to eSports events, we generally prefer to work with experienced partners on the operations side while we focus on ensuring quality in terms of how our content is incorporated."
"While we were fans of the IPL and disappointed to learn that it was coming to an end, we have no plans to take over operation of the IPL business or operate third-party eSports leagues."
"That said, there were many talented and passionate gamers working for IGN/IPL whom we feel would be valuable additions to our team. We've already extended job offers to some of the employees who've been laid off, and we plan to make offers to others who may become available soon. Obviously they bring a lot of web-development knowledge and eSports expertise, which we can use to help us with our online presence and eSports-related projects. We're also looking into picking up some of the IPL technology and other assets, but again this is to support our own initiatives and does not have anything to do with any Blizzard-related continuation of the IPL."
Last month, an internal memo by Ziff Davis CEO Vivek Shah, posted on Polygon, said the company was looking for active buyers of IPL. "IGN's role going forward will be to broadcast and cover a variety of eSports events," Shah said.
"As stated several weeks ago, we are actively speaking with parties interested in acquiring IPL," Will Guyatt, a spokesperson for IGN, told GameSpot. "We will not comment on rumors or speculation surrounding our current activity."
Wargaming, home of the widely popular free to play game World of Tanks, and Ubisoft, home to new competitive arcade shooter Shootmania, are both said to also be interested in IPL. Wargaming recently held an event with the IGNProLeague at SXSW Interactive this past week. Representatives from Ubisoft and Wargaming were not available for comment at the time of publishing.
Spec Ops: The Line developer Yager has signed a deal with Epic Games to license the Unreal Engine 4 to power a AAA next-generation title. The Berlin, Germany-based Yager is the first European independent studio to license the technology.
Yager's mystery project will be unveiled in the coming months. No further information about the game, or the terms of the deal, were specified.
Though Yager has not divulged its new project yet, job listings at the studio hint that the game may feature microtransactions and cross-platform play. A desirable candidate for a "monetization designer" will have "in-depth knowledge of cross-platform games and microtransaction based business models."
In addition, this person will "seek out and incorporate feedback from the team, QA, and playtesters throughout the production in order to maximize monetization whilst minimizing negative impact on game experience."
Additional job listings seek developers with experience on real-time strategy and role-playing games, as well as first-person action titles.
For more on Yager's latest body of work, check out GameSpot's review of Spec Ops: The Line.
Cyberpunk 2077 will have a multiplayer component. Developer CD Projekt Red managing director Adam Badowski confirmed the news to Eurogamer, but did not go into greater detail.
"It will be a story-based RPG experience with amazing single-player playthroughs, but we're going to add multiplayer features," Badowski said.
Badowski also confirmed that Cyberpunk 2077 will not cast players as a pre-defined hero, but rather allow them to forge their own creation. "We'll have different situation in Cyberpunk," Badowski said. "Cyberpunk will have different character classes."
Cyberpunk 2077 puts players into a "dark future" in 2077 where advanced technologies have become "both the salvation and the curse of humanity." The game promises a nonlinear story designed for "mature" players and is set in the metropolis of Night City. It has also been revealed that Cyberpunk 2077 will feature sandbox elements, though this was not specified in any length.
CD Projekt Red's other project, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, may also include multiplayer. The developer recently said it was "thinking about something" relating to a series-first multiplayer option for the 2014-dated role-playing game.
John Riccitiello beats out Michael Jordan, Barack Obama in Sports Illustrated top 50 power poll.
Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello has been named to Sports Illustrated's "50 Most Powerful People In Sports" list. The executive earned his place on the list by leading development on sports franchises like FIFA Soccer and Madden NFL.
"His products have shaped Generation Y's perception of sports as much as anyone's," Sports Illustrated wrote, before cautioning that difficult times may be ahead. "But is exhaustion setting in after 25 years of incrementally improved Madden games?"
Riccitiello was named the 39th most powerful person in sports, beating out the likes of United States president Barack Obama (44), UFC president Dana White (45), Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban (48), and Bobcats owner and former NBA star Michael Jordan (50).
The most powerful person in sports, according to Sports Illustrated, is NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
A new Dishonored expansion will launch next month. Bethesda today announced Dishonored: The Knife of Dunwall, a new story-focused expansion due April 16 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC for $10.
In The Knife of Dunwall, players take on the role of Daud, a legendary assassin who killed the Empress. Players will have access to his weapons, gadgets, allies, and supernatural abilities.
"After assassinating the Empress, and forever changing the fate of Dunwall, you embark on a search for redemption. The Outsider reveals the key to your atonement, but who--or what--is Delilah?" reads a line from the content's description.
Players will be accompanied on their trip through never-before-seen parts of Dunwall by the Whalers, a band of mercenary assassins, as they take on "new and terrible" enemies.
The Knife of Dunwall will not be the last Dishonored expansion. Bethesda announced last year that an additional story-focused add-on is also in the works. Bethesda revealed today this content is called The Brigmore Witches, which will conclude Daud's story when it releases sometime in the future.
Dishonored launched in October and was the United States' fourth-best-selling game of the month. It was also the only non-sequel to make the top-10 chart during the month. The game's first expansion--Dunwall City Trials--launched in December.
For more on Dishonored, check out GameSpot's review.
That is AWESOME!
So bad it's good.
They did get a lot of original gameplay in there and all.
They should make more games. Maybe a Dawsons Creek game or whatever else is on TV these days.
This makes me wonder about the fans of this show though.
Maybe you should only play really bad games. Somehow it's more fun to watch.
Doug Lombardi says Valve began some "exploratory work" with the company last year, but is not involved in Xi3's current products.
Valve has said it has no current connection with Xi3, the PC-maker behind the $1000 Piston.
Valve marketing director Doug Lombardi confirmed the company's position to Eurogamer. "Valve began some exploratory work with Xi3 last year, but currently has no involvement in any product of theirs."
Xi3 announced it had received an investment from Valve alongside the unveiling of the Piston, and the machine was being shown off at Valve's booth during tech expo CES 2013 in January.
The grapefruit-sized Piston features a 3.2GHz Quad Core AMD A10 processor and 8GB of RAM, and is designed to sit underneath a living room television and make use of Steam's Big Picture mode. The standard $999.99 model comes with a 128GB SSD hard drive, with 256GB and 512GB models costing $1,339.99 and $1,749.99 respectively. Xi3 is currently offering a $100 discount on all models to customers who pre-order the device.
Valve is working on a Steam Box of its own, with Gabe Newell saying that a prototype should be ready for testing in the next few months.
Has absolutely never at all had the song from Beauty and the Beast sung to him at any point during his life, ever.
A U.S. District Judge has sentenced former GameStop VP Frank Christopher Olivera to 51 months in federal prison (via Polygon) after pleading guilty in November to one count of mail fraud.
His admission to mail fraud carried a maximum 20-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.
Olivera stole $1.7 million from GameStop from July 2009 through April 2011 by submitting fraudulent invoices from a made up company called "Cloud Communications LLC."
In addition to making up a company, Olivera created a fictitious person, "Jennifer Miller," to act as a point of contact for the fake firm. Olivera would deposit checks from GameStop into Cloud Communications' bank account, then transfer the funds to his personal account.
The $1.7 million Olivera stole from GameStop has been returned to the retailer, along with an additional $57,376, the amount unpaid on the loss, and $77,275 in restitution.
Olivera was terminated from his position in 2011. A GameStop representative was not immediately available to comment.
The PlayStation 4 is resonating well with GameStop shoppers. The retailer has announced that more than 600,000 of its PowerUp Rewards members have signed up for the PS4 First to Know List, indicating "strong demand" for the upcoming next-generation platform.
"With only a glance at the PS4, gamers are excited and eager to know more," GameStop president Tony Bartel said in a statement. "Within just a few weeks, more than 600,000 people have signed up, showing strong demand for this new console."
In addition, Sony Computer Entertainment America president and CEO Jack Tretton said the reaction at GameStop means the "promise of PS4 is resonating with gamers." He said more information about the platform will be shared in the coming months.
The PS4 will launch this holiday season, though Sony has yet to announce a price for the platform. GameStop is not accepting preorders for the console and signing up for the First to Know List does not guarantee a unit at launch.
← Find out everything we know about the PS4.
Xbox Live's first free-to-play game Happy Wars has been downloaded more than 2 million times since launch in October, developer Toylogic announced today. That figure is up from 1.2 million in December.
Though Happy Wars is free to play, gamers can purchase "Happy Tickets" with real-world money to upgrade their characters' appearance and equipment. This can also be achieved by unlocking "Happy Stars" through play. Additionally, gamers must hold an Xbox Live Gold subscription ($60 per year) to download Happy Wars.
Toylogic also announced today that a "major" update for Happy Wars has been released. It includes a new Special Match Mode, which introduces new multiplayer rules, as well as additional customization slots (from one to three). Lastly, the new Happy Wars update extends the level cap for items from 10 to 15.
The game supports simultaneously play for up to 30 players (15 vs.15), who must attack their opponents' castle while simultaneously defending their own.
Happy Wars may be the first free-to-play game for Xbox Live, but it won't be the last. Signal Studios' third-person role-playing game Ascend: New Gods will also be available through the platform for free when it launches in "several months."
Dreamfall Chapters: The Longest Journey, Red Thread Games' Kickstarter drive to resurrect its dormant Longest Journey series, has ended up with the game almost doubling its target.
$1,538,425 was raised for the project. The goal was set at $850,000.
Dreamfall Chapters: The Longest Journey is set to be released in November 2014 and will continue the storyline of series protagonist Zoë Castillo. The game is a 3D adventure built in the popular Unity engine, and will be released for PC, Mac, and Linux.
Dreamfall Chapters: The Longest Journey carries on from the events of 2000's The Longest Journey and 2006's Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. Dreamfall Chapters promises a return of familiar characters and locations for series veterans, but also enough new content so that newcomers can play without being overwhelmed.
"Dreamfall Chapters takes players on an epic journey -- from the dystopian cyberpunk future of Stark, through the mysterious and dreamlike Storytime, to the magical landscapes of Arcadia," reads the game's Kickstarter page.
There will also be an interactive digital graphic novel released which recaps the events of the first two games.
Funding was not enough to meet the $2m stretch goal for an entirely new 2D point-and-click adventure titled The Longest Journey Home. "But even if we don't reach that lofty goal this time around, we hope to some day still be able to tell this story," says the game's Kickstarter page.
For more information on Dreamfall Chapters: The Longest Journey, check out Kevin VanOrd's recent interview with series creator Ragnar Tørnquist.
The Entertainment Software Association today announced a new national public education campaign aimed at further informing American parents about game ratings.
The focus of the new campaign will be a string of public service announcements that call on parents to familiarize themselves with the Entertainment Software Ratings Board rating system. The PSAs will also encourage them to make use of existing console parental control options.
"No one knows better than parents when it comes to making decisions about which games their children should and should not play," said U.S. Senator John Thune (R-SD) in a statement. "The video game industry makes games for people of all ages, but that doesn't mean all games are appropriate for everyone.
As part of the new education initiative, the ESA will work with game retailers to use their physical stores and online presence to educate customers about ESRB ratings. In addition, the group said it will team with lawmakers to extend the ESRB ratings system to games for smartphone, tablets, and social games.
The program also has the support of U.S. representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL).
"I commend the video game industry for recognizing the importance of educating and engaging parents about the ratings and other resources and for leading a national program that will ensure the decision-making power remains where it should be--with parents," she said in a statement.
Video games have been a much-discussed topic in the wake of the December schoolhouse massacre in Connecticut that left 20 children and six adults dead. The topic has been debated at the state, federal, and even the executive level.
President Barack Obama has directed the Centers for Disease Control to conduct further studies on the relationship between virtual violence and real-world violence.
In addition, vice president Joe Biden met with various members of the gaming industry in January to discuss the link between violent video games and gun violence as part of a wider task force into gun control measures.
We ask a handful of developers to explain how their games were inspired by material outside the world of video games.
A few weeks back, I was talking to some folks from Irrational Games when they told me that one of the biggest sources of inspiration for BioShock Infinite was Erik Larson's book The Devil in the White City. At first, I was surprised. How could a book about the Chicago World's Fair shape a video game about a fictional city in the sky? But as lead artist Shawn Robertson described it, Irrational was more interested in tapping into those themes of emerging technologies and engineering power rather than the more literal tale of Chicago's quest for escaping its status as a backwater meatpacking town. This got me thinking: how have other game creators been inspired by pieces of media--books, movies, music--outside the world of video games? To find out, I asked a few developers to answer that question in their own words.
When it comes to XCOM, I didn't draw much inspiration from books, movies, or TV shows. Most of my external inspiration came from music. If I was ever designing a new system, I made sure to have Tangerine Dream coming out of my speakers. More than any other game, the original X-Com had a soul. It had a dark, spooky mood that really got under your skin. The music of Tangerine Dream evokes the exact same mood, and that drops me right back into 1994, hunched over my tiny 15-inch monitor playing X-Com late, late into the night. The lonely, haunting synth sounds of Tangerine Dream keep me tied to the spirit of the original game, even when I'm dreaming up new mechanics.
There were a number of influences outside of games that we took inspiration from when making the Tomb Raider reboot. From a character perspective, Ripley from the Alien series has always been a great inspiration to us. John McClane from Die Hard is referenced as a grounded action hero, and The Descent provided inspiration for some of the darker tones in the game. The first Rambo was a classic source of survival inspiration, but probably the most significant influences were real-world stories of survival. Stories like Aron Ralston's moving tale as represented in 127 Hours, or the ordeal of the Uruguayan rugby team stranded in the Andes as portrayed in Alive. These stories captured the strength of the human spirit and a will to survive that reminded us of Lara Croft.
Bastion is one of those games that's inspired by so many different things, I can barely mention them all. There is one in particular, though, that stands out to me as being highly influential to the tone and atmosphere. When thinking about the world design at the outset of the project, we wanted to come up with something that felt different and exciting to us. We knew we were going to make an action role-playing game, but didn't want to set it in a conventional fantasy world since that's already been done well many other times.
[Cormac McCarthy's] minimal hard-edged dialogue and lush, efficient prose were great references for how we ended up handling the narration in our game.
Supergiant's studio director, Amir Rao, and I are both English majors, so we started thinking about writers with distinctive styles. That's when Cormac McCarthy's name came up. Our joke was, what if instead of being a great American author, McCarthy wrote little Diablo-style games? What would they sound like? We wanted to find out. So we chased this idea of a Western-tinged, old-time-American-feeling fantasy world, inspired in part by McCarthy's novels such as All the Pretty Horses and Blood Meridian. His minimal hard-edged dialogue and lush, efficient prose were great references for how we ended up handling the narration in our game.
Devil in the White City was a huge inspiration to us. It's obviously a story about a serial killer during the Chicago World's Fair, but what we got out of it as a team was this age of enlightenment and how much technology was introduced at that time. I didn't even know Tesla and Edison had a rivalry where one was promoting AC and one was promoting DC! That [emerging technology] starts informing possible scenarios, things bubbling up to the surface that you want to latch onto, things for writers to start writing about or things that inspire the art team in general to start making.
To be honest, this is hard to answer because the biggest media influence on Dishonored was probably the video game Thief. Thief presented a dark, corrupt world full of secret factions, with its own history. Everything in the environment felt cohesively tied together in an organic way. But to the heart of your question, we would cite additional literary influences like H.P. Lovecraft, Mervyn Peake, Neil Gaiman, or Michael Moorcock. We were also guided by films like Gangs of New York and television series like Deadwood.
Finding good inspiration for Mark of the Ninja in fiction was certainly a challenge. Unlike spy fiction (probably the closest analog to ninja), nearly all ninja fiction is, at best, an over-the-top gorefest. At worst, it's some of the corniest, campiest stuff you'll ever hope to find (for example, Miami Connection).
There is a series of Japanese films from the '60s called Shinobi no Mono, which, although obviously from the '60s, are otherwise pretty good. They tell the highly stylized story of Goemon Ishikawa, a famous ninja from Japanese history. He's something of a Robin Hood figure, but is most famous for attempting to assassinate one of Japan's greatest warlords, Toyotomi Hideyoshi. He was executed by being boiled alive after the attempt failed. Even today in Japan, large iron bathtubs are called a "Goemon bath." Coincidentally, Goemon was actually the protagonist in the SNES game Legend of the Mystical Ninja, although he was renamed "Kid Yang," and the game has nothing else to do with his life. So stories about actual ninja were probably the biggest inspiration as far as the ninja fiction actually goes. Several of the game's backstory scrolls refer to actual events and broader changes that took place in history.
All gamers who purchased a copy of SimCity will receive a free digital PC title, Electronic Arts announced tonight. Those with an activated copy of SimCity by March 18 are eligible for the free game.
No further details on this promotion were divulged.
Maxis general manager Lucy Bradshaw announced the news tonight as part of a blog post addressing the SimCity server woes and how the company plans to get back on track.
Bradshaw's entire blog post is below.
"Here's a quick update on the problems we were experiencing with SimCity--and a little something extra for people who bought the game.
The server issues which began at launch have improved significantly as we added more capacity. But some people are still experiencing response and stability problems that we're working fast to address.
So what went wrong? The short answer is: a lot more people logged on than we expected. More people played and played in ways we never saw in the beta.
OK, we agree, that was dumb, but we are committed to fixing it. In the last 48 hours we increased server capacity by 120 percent. It's working--the number of people who have gotten in and built cities has improved dramatically. The number of disrupted experiences has dropped by roughly 80 percent.
So we're close to fixed, but not quite there. I'm hoping to post another update this weekend to let everyone know that the launch issues are behind us.
Something Special for Your Trouble
The good news is that SimCity is a solid hit in all major markets. The consensus among critics and players is that this is fundamentally a great game. But this SimCity is made to be played online, and if you can't get a stable connection, you're NOT having a good experience. So we're not going to rest until we've fixed the remaining server issues.
And to get us back in your good graces, we're going to offer you a free PC download game from the EA portfolio. On March 18, SimCity players who have activated their game will receive an email telling them how to redeem their free game.
I know that's a little contrived--kind of like buying a present for a friend after you did something crummy. But we feel bad about what happened. We're hoping you won't stay mad and that we'll be friends again when SimCity is running at 100 percent.
SimCity is a GREAT game and the people who made it are incredibly proud. Hang in there--we'll be providing more updates throughout the weekend.
This week we check out Dead Space 3, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dragonborn, Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage 2, Fire Emblem: Awakening and Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. Beats provided by DJ VInroc: http://www.thatsthatstuff.com.
Posted Feb 1, 2013 | 1:57 | 24,870 Views
Cam and Seb dip back into the wonderful world of Skyrim mods. This week we witness Master Chief go all Temple of Doom on the citizens of Tamriel.
Halo Mods
Master Chief Armor by jpdoctor
Steam Workshop Link
Cortana Follower by jpdoctor
Steam Workshop Link
Gravity Hammer - Halo 3 by Abe Froman
Steam Workshop Link
Halo Energy Sword by LittleJoeC
Steam Workshop Link
The Rest
Lizardman - Werewolf Replacer by Dogtown1
Steam Workshop Link
Heart Breaker - A Killmove Mod by Reko
Steam Workshop Link
Instant Merchant by neckface
Steam Workshop Link
Duel - Combat Realism
Skyrim Nexus Link
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Cam makes videos for GameSpot and is a lover of games, music, science, and above ALL else, musical science games. (See Deus Ex in Bminor).
